Run autonomous AI agents without losing control of your network. Effective August 31, 2026, Broadcom announced new security, identity, and observability capabilities for agentic artificial intelligence (AI) workloads across VMware vDefend, VMware Avi Load Balancer, and the newly unveiled Broadcom AgentMinder.
Summary
- Broadcom introduced multi-layer security, identity, and observability capabilities for agentic AI workloads running on the Private AI Cloud
- VMware vDefend contributes Agentic Zero Trust, while VMware Avi Load Balancer contributes Agentic Threat Defense
- Broadcom AgentMinder was unveiled as the central control plane for autonomous AI agents
- The capabilities target blind spots created by Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, large language models (LLMs), tools, and datastores
- vDefend and Avi Load Balancer remain Advanced Services add-ons to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), licensed separately from the core per-core subscription
- Organizations with agentic AI plans should review their VCF entitlements before these capabilities become available
What is changing?
Broadcom presented the announcement at VMware Explore 2026 in Las Vegas. The three products address agentic AI risk at three different layers: the network inside VMware Cloud Foundation, the application delivery layer, and the agent identity layer. Broadcom describes the combination as defense-in-depth for the private cloud, so enterprises can operationalize autonomous agents without moving their data to a public cloud.
The announcement builds on the vDefend and Avi Load Balancer release of August 6, 2026, which added on-premises malware prevention, full air-gapped support, and native API protection for virtual machines, VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS), and AI workloads. Broadcom describes the new agentic capabilities as planned product direction, so the capabilities are announced rather than generally available.
What are VMware vDefend and VMware Avi Load Balancer?
VMware vDefend is the lateral security layer of VMware Cloud Foundation. It combines a distributed firewall with advanced threat prevention, so workloads are segmented inside the data center and not only at the perimeter. VMware Avi Load Balancer is the software-defined application delivery layer, with a web application firewall and API protection, elastic scale-out, and integration with Kubernetes including VKS.
For licensing, both products are Advanced Services add-ons to VMware Cloud Foundation and are purchased separately from the core VCF subscription, which is sold per core. AgentMinder is a newly unveiled Broadcom product and therefore sits outside the existing vDefend and Avi entitlements. The announcement states no licensing or pricing terms for AgentMinder, so its commercial model should be confirmed with Broadcom before it enters a budget.
Agentic Zero Trust in VMware vDefend
- Discovery of agentic AI components identifies MCP servers, LLMs, datastores, and tools by continuously monitoring traffic flows across VMware Cloud Foundation
- Shadow AI monitoring detects unauthorized AI usage and enforces Zero Trust policies against it
- AI-generated Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDPS) signatures are produced by an agentic AI pipeline at machine speed and provide distributed virtual patching
Agentic Threat Defense in VMware Avi Load Balancer
- Tool and agent misuse prevention restricts agents from unauthorized MCP tools and inspects transaction content to block remote code execution (RCE) and file injection
- Zero day attack detection establishes normal traffic baselines across agents, LLMs, and tools, then flags and isolates anomalous behavior in real time
- Sensitive data protection helps prevent the exfiltration of credentials, personally identifiable information (PII), and sensitive financial data
Broadcom AgentMinder: identity, intent, and governance
- Identity and intent controls treat autonomous agents as enterprise-grade identities and bind their authority to a declared mission, permitted intents, approved tools, and authorized resources
- Runtime policy enforcement runs through a cloud-native gateway that evaluates identity, tool, intent, and resource on every tool invocation and applies least-privileged policies
- Compliance-grade auditability is built on OpenTelemetry and delivers chain of custody, anomaly detection, and operational insight for every agent session
Why agentic AI security is relevant now
Agentic AI moves the attack surface from user traffic to machine-to-machine traffic. Agents call tools, read datastores, and talk to other agents over MCP and agent-to-agent (A2A) protocols, and perimeter controls never see that traffic. Enterprises that keep inference on-premises gain data control, but they also inherit the duty to segment, monitor, and audit those flows themselves. Covering identity, segmentation, and web protection inside one VMware Cloud Foundation stack reduces tool sprawl, shortens the audit trail, and keeps the security budget inside an existing vendor relationship.
What organizations should do now
- Inventory every agentic AI component running on VMware Cloud Foundation, including MCP servers, LLMs, and datastores, and document the count before your next renewal date
- Review which vDefend and Avi Load Balancer entitlements your current VCF subscription covers, and where an add-on would be required
- Validate whether unsanctioned AI usage already exists in your environment, because shadow AI changes the scope of any later security purchase
- Align an AgentMinder evaluation with your identity and compliance owners, as agent governance touches both areas
- Monitor Broadcom release notes for general availability dates, since the agentic capabilities are announced as planned direction
Ready to review your Broadcom licensing?
SCHNEIDER IT MANAGEMENT is an authorized Broadcom partner and reseller with a dedicated Broadcom licensing division. Our experts review your VMware Cloud Foundation subscription, clarify which Advanced Services add-ons your agentic AI plans would require, and keep your Broadcom contracts cost-optimized, audit-ready, and aligned with your renewal cycle. Contact us at https://www.schneider.systems/contact/ to review your Broadcom licensing position.
Sources
For the announcement of Broadcom VMware vDefend and Avi Load Balancer: Agentic AI Security for the Private Cloud, please visit: https://www.broadcom.com/company/news/product-releases/64641.
For useful software licensing information on Broadcom products, please visit: https://www.schneider.systems/software/broadcom/.
